GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — Last week, Denver South Economic Development Partnership (DSEDP) announced the launch of the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance. This ground-breaking collaboration is a state-wide, multi-jurisdictional partnership designed to accelerate the development of Smart City initiatives across the state of Colorado.

“We’ve been focused on how to progress cities smart and faster but the reality is that progress is about policy changes, and fitting technology into the outcomes,” said Gabe Klein, author of Start-Up Cities. “Fundamentally, we have to ask ourselves, what kind of cities or towns do we want to live in.”

Gabe Klein speaks to a full room at the AMG National Trust Bank in Greenwood Village

The Colorado Smart Cities Alliance will bring together leaders and stakeholders to consider just that question. As indicated by the diverse panel at the Colorado Smart Cities Forum, the Alliance will look at how Coloradans measure quality of life and work to align technology and policy towards those outcomes.

Following the announcement of the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance, Jake Rishavy, vice president of Innovation at Denver South EDP, explained, “Over the past year, we listened to stakeholders across the Denver South region and learned from experts within the state, nationally and globally. What we heard was that the promise of Smart Cities is to enable us to live, work and play effortlessly in a future increasingly shaped by urban growth, challenges and opportunities. To fully realize this promise, it is essential that cities and counties across Colorado come together to leverage economies of scale, share successes and failures, and increase the value of these efforts to citizens and businesses.”

Traci Hiltonberry, Director of Innovation at Denver South EDP, said, “We are tremendously excited about this initiative aimed at enabling innovation, improving quality of life and increasing economic vitality across the state. We believe that this Alliance will stimulate impactful initiatives and enable key public-private partnerships.”

As such, the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance will host regular “Civic Labs” events around the state to share challenges, expertise and solutions, and create a clearinghouse of best practices for Smart City technology implementation.

The Alliance will work to serve the vibrant ecosystem in Colorado by enabling public-private partnerships in the cities of Denver South and throughout the state.